![]() ![]() ![]() This prompts the question of how the experience of the single male, that is the younger male who might yet marry, was essentially different from that of the single female. The singlewoman is consequently conspicuous in the records in a way in which the single male, as opposed to simply the male, is not. 1 In part this is a corollary of the legal conventions of the day that show concern for a woman’s status in relation to fathers, husbands, etc. Whereas, however, there is a specific and valuable scholarship that focuses on single women, even a recent monograph that explores the cultural construction of the singlewoman, with the exception of Ruth Karras medievalists seem not in general to have thought to consider the parallel category of unmarried men. Thus we have studies of bishops, of clergy and members of religious orders, of soldiers and aristocrats, merchants and artisans. Scholars have written about men, single and otherwise, for generations. ![]() There is a certain irony in the neglect of the subject of single males in later medieval English culture. ![]()
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